Heirs of Gondor 0: the Blue Box
by LA Knight
Summary: A Dwarf Lord receives a commission for a box to be crafted, but the woman who desires it has evil intentions.... Prequel to "The Heirs of Gondor" series.
1. Commission

**Blue Box: Commission**

_Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls..._

"I hear you can do anything I may challenge you to do, for a fee. If you fail to do it, I need not pay. Is this true?"

The Dwarf stared at the woman standing before him, struck nearly dumb. Eyes like ice burned him to the bare bone. Her gaze struck him frozen, as if he had lain for a hundred nights upon the pale blue ice and, though he had not died, he had fallen into a cold sleep. His bones and teeth ached sharply.

Her hair was strikingly unremarkable, being the dull brown color of river mud. But her eyes... he could scarcely meet her eyes, or keep his gaze on her deathly white face.

"Is this true?"

"Aye, milady," he mumbled to her, his eyes fixed on the swan white column of her throat. "If I fail in the task you set for me, you need not tender payment."

Her smile would have turned the hairs of his beard whiter than snow if he had been looking at her when it cut across her face, but he refused to look at such bloodless lips. He thought for a moment that he could see her teeth, and they were sharp as a serpent's fangs.

"I want you to make me a box. This box will be carved of alabaster and set with silver and sapphires. The jewels I have here, in this pouch."

She tossed a royal blue velvet bag at his feet.

"Is that all, milady?"

"Oh, no, Master Dwarf. This box will be magic. I know the Dwarves still have magic to be put into their creations. Do you want to know what this box must be able to do?"

Somehow, he knew he did not, but he knew that refusing her would damn him in some irrevocable way that would cost him much more than his life. Something about this strange woman pulled savagely at the boundaries of his sanity.

"What is that, milady?" He asked softly, dreading the answer.

She leaned in, the silken wisps of her ebony curls brushing his ruddy cheek. He fought, and failed, to suppress a shudder. Her thin, corpse-grey lips brushed against his ears as she told him exactly what that box was for.

He gaped at her, forgetting to avert his eyes from her horrid, cruelly beautiful face.

"But... but that's..."

"Make the box. Charm it to my purposes. I will see to the rest. You mustn't deny me this little thing, you really mustn't, Master Dwarf."

And she glided away, and out of the room, leaving the Dwarf suddenly nerveless from terror as he sank into his chair.

It was several hours later that he felt steady enough to call for ale. It was several mugs of ale later that he was drunk enough to pick up the velvet pouch from the floor and look into it.

Hastily, he tied it shut and threw it as far away from where he sat as he could manage.

**Oo8oo8oo8oo8oo8oO**

Part one of two. Part of a series involving Dwarves, Boromir, Denethor, a vile sorceress, and a maiden. I do not own Lord of the Rings. Reviews are awesome. Toodles.


	2. Completion

**Blue Box: Completion**

"Here is your box, milady."

The Dwarf craftsman stared up at the woman who towered above him, her eyes like chips of cobalt ice as she stared at him, her gaze boring into him until sweat popped out from his temples.

On the table before him sat the box. Small and ornately carved, like a noble lady's trinket box, it sat, seemingly innocent, before him.

The lady with the bloodless lips caressed the design of a maiden who appeared to be dancing that graced the lid. The maiden's eyes were tiny sapphires. As the woman who frightened the Dwarf so badly lifted the trinket box up to her face, cradling it like it was something precious and alive, the Dwarf cringed.

The carvings upon the small, white box seemed innocent enough, but he knew better. The dancing, spritely little creatures were not smiling happily, but leering and sneering. The maidens carved upon the box were not dancing, though they seemed to be swaying to some unknown, secret melody. But they weren't... they were writhing in the throes of hellish agony.

It was all made to that woman's specifications.

"I thank you, Master Dwarf. You have exceeded all my expectations."

Her voice slid around inside his head like maggots squirming upon dead flesh. He shuddered, staring at the woman's elegant, cobalt satin slippers. He would never be able to meet that woman's gaze without cringing inside. Every look she cast his way cut him to the bone.

"I... I am pleased that milady is pleased. So, I have given you what you asked for?"

Part of him prayed to Aule that it was not so, but the rest of him screamed that not doing as the lady asked of him was a sure way to die before his children made him a grandfather.

"No, Sir Dwarf. You have not given me what I asked for. This box will not do for what I have in mind. Not in its current state, anyway."

Something glinted silver, flashed white as light flared upon something made of metal.

The Dwarf felt a stinging pain across his throat, and wet, flowing warmth. His knees buckled, but the lady grabbed him and bent him over the box on the table. His blood sprayed across the alabaster. Her touch burned him, it was so icy cold. Around where her skin touched, his flesh turned first white, then red, darkening to a frostbitten purple.

"Your blood will put it in its proper state, my dear Dwarf," she whispered, her voice a chill, winter wind upon his flesh. "I thank you for what you've done, my lovely."

She let the Dwarf fall, and the corpse hit the ground with a thud. She picked the box up, gazing at it fondly. She felt the pulse of power in it as it fed off the blood, spilled in hatred, rife with fear.

This box, all crimson with blood, its blue jewels burning brightly through the spatter, its voice the voice of maidens' tortured screaming, was exactly what she wanted.

Like a winter fog, she slipped from the Dwarven stronghold and vanished into the wilds, with that accursed box of black magic in her possession.

**Oo8oo8oo8oO**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Lord of the Rings. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave me a comment as to what you thought.


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